Nanjing 2014

Wu factor at the Natatorium as Chinese diver wins gold

Everyone deals with nerves in their own way, but Chinese diving sensation Wu Shengping showed she has a particularly effective method, as she swooped to gold in the women’s 10m platform diving on 23 August.

Everyone deals with nerves in their own way, but Chinese diving sensation Wu Shengping showed she has a particularly effective method, as she swooped to gold in the women’s 10m platform diving on 23 August.

“I didn’t feel any pressure while diving. Actually I’m a bit short-sighted, so even if I was trying to look at the results, I couldn’t see clearly,” she said after clinching the title at the Nanjing Olympic Sport Centre Natatorium.

Wu took the lead after her first dive and never looked back, dominating the programme, as she scored a nine in two of her four dives, and picked up a competition high of 86.40 with a 3.2 degree difficulty inward three-and-a-half somersault.

Wu led comfortably throughout qualifying and maintained her tunnel vision, executing her four dives in the final with barely a splash to win the first diving gold medal of Nanjing 2014 with 526.20 points.

The youngster said she was satisfied, having “performed really well”, although she admitted that she “did a bit better in the preliminaries and a little worse in the final”.